I'd Like My Happy Ever After
by JMolover13
Summary: SWAN QUEEN! Cora has taken Emma's heart and Henry. Regina can only choose to save one or the other... her lover or her son. She chooses both. Prompt FIlled on Tumblr.


**AN: Prompt from Tumblr: ****Cora has ripped Emma's heart out and taken Henry, now Regina and Snow must team up to find save them both and recover Emma's heart before Cora uses it to kill the saviour.**

Emma writhed in pain on the bed she had been brought to. James drew his sword, rounded the bed and put the blade against Regina's throat. "I should kill you now!" he cried, angry at everything that had happened.

"Charming." Snow's soft, sad, hopeless voice came from behind him. He looked over to his wife.

"Dad." Emma said as she calmed down from the searing pain in her chest. He saw the look in his daughter's then his wife's eyes; they made him break. He withdrew the sword and sheathed it once more.

"I wish you had just gone ahead and done it." Regina said quietly, "It should have been me. Not Emma. Not our son."

"Hey, hey…" Emma breathed heavily, heatedly… the pain was started to ebb completely. "I would let her near you for a reason…" The blonde looked up at her wife then took her face in her hands.

"But she took… She took your heart." Regina let some tears fall as she leant forward and kissed her wife's temple.

"Well… put a spell over me until I get it back… Go all wizard of Oz on me… make me the tin woman…" She tried to joke about their rather dire situation. Regina smiled, but nothing else, "My heart will still be beating for you for always, Regina…. Even if—"

Snow knew exactly what her daughter was going to say…they all did, but Snow spoke first, "NO! Emma! Don't you dare finish that sentence. Your father, your mother nor your wife can listen to the end of that sentence. In fact I am banishing the words 'crushed' and 'dust' from this room."

"Yes mom." Emma nodded.

Snow looked at Regina, "Look, I know that we've had our… _differences_. I know that this is the last place either of us thought we'd be… You going from my evil stepmother to my lovely daughter-in-law…" Snow had walked from her place over to the other brunette and placed her hand on Regina's shoulder, "We have to find your mother. We have to get my daughter—your love's heart. We have to get my grandson… and we have to defeat her."

"No… I… I can't do it. You don't understand… You thought I was evil?... She… Satan himself fears my mother! I can't—"

"Yes! You can!" Snow turned Regina around to her, "And you know why you can? Because you're in love. You have more power than she could ever imagine, and that scares her. You can defeat your mother, Regina… you can! You have to! Because I will not lose my daughter again, and you will not lose another lover! Now think! Where would your mother take them?"

Regina was about to start whining, telling them that she didn't know… But it came to her like lightning. "She's going where it all began." Regina looked at Snow.

Snow nodded and James said that he was going with them. Snow shook her head and told her this was something Regina and herself needed to do.

Regina leaned over so that she and Emma could have a moment. She looked into her love's eyes, "I love you." She whispered.

"I love you too, Bab—YYYY!" Emma yelped out in sudden pain.

Regina fell forward, head on the bed and cried for a moment… but only a moment. She collected herself and stood back up, "She's not letting you feel happiness. She's squeezing every time you start to."

"Well, there are easier ways to hurt me.." Emma said sarcastically.

"She's not doing it to hurt you. She's doing it to hurt me." Regina stood up. She leaned over and whispered, "I'm sorry." Before she kissed her. Emma broke the kiss screaming, trembling. Regina took her hand then looked to Snow. "We have to go now if we're going."

Snow nodded and Regina let go of Emma's hand and grasped her mother-in-law's. James sat on the bed with Emma, the watch their wives flash out and to where… they weren't sure.

Regina and Snow stood alone in the field. They were in the exact spot Regina pulled Snow off the horse.

"I was wondering when you two would show up." Cora said as she flashed in front of them.

"Where is my grandson?" Snow asked, her tone dangerous.

"My grandson is perfectly safe. Honestly do you think I would hurt my own flesh?"

Snow glared daggers at the older witch, "You don't have the best track record." She looked from mother to daughter then back again, "Henry. Now."

Cora rolled her eyes and waved her hand. Henry appeared in front of them with no scratches or scrapes or bruises of any kind. He was sitting in a chair. After looking around seemingly confused, he saw his mother and grandmother, "MOM! SNOW!" He cried and tried to get out, but he couldn't move.

"Let him go, Mother." Regina looked at her mother fiercely.

"Oh dear, you know it's not that easy… I can only allow you Emma's heart or her son…" as she said this, she snapped her fingers so that she was holding the heart.

"What do we do?" Snow asked.

Regina was shocked into a still silence, "Regina…?"

Regina's rage from so long ago burst forward. She flashed out as the clouds grew very dark and had a purple tint to them. She then flashed back on impact with her mother, taking her mother down, effectively ridding her hand of Emma's heart.

Cora simply used the force to grab it, but Regina used the force to strangle her mother, "Mother, I'll bet anything that Emma's heart is still beating by the time yours isn't." She ripped her mother's heart out.

Cora spoke as clearly as she could being choked, "You really think you can do that and win?" She pushed her hand into her daughter's chest… nothing.

"Yes." Regina squeezed, "I do."

As soon as Regina began squeezing her mother's heart, Cora dropped Emma's and Henry was suddenly free. Snow had run to grab her daughter's heart and then to her grandson.

Regina squeezed and squeezed until there was nothing left… not even dust. Her mother's body vanished to a world unknown once the heart was gone and Regina sat there still trying to squeeze, still trembling with fear for the woman that tortured her so many years.

"Regina." Snow walked over to her and gently put her hand onto Regina's shoulder, "It's over. Let's go home."

Regina nodded, still staring down where her mother was before she turned on her knees to see her son, "Henry?"

"Mom!" Henry yelled and fell into her arms, "Where did your heart go?"

"I put it in a special place for safe keeping." Regina said simply as she took his and Snow's hand before flashing them back to the room Emma and James were in.

Regina looked at the heart in her mother-in-law's hands and gestured for it, telling the other brunette woman she wanted it. She took it in her hands and the heart seemingly cleaned itself before lifting off its platform and putting itself back in Emma's chest. As they saw this, they saw this cloth-covered thing on Emma's stomach begin to move. It was Regina's heart. It lifted from Emma's stomach to her chest and placed itself where it rightfully belonged.

"You knew she was going to rip your heart out." Snow said, "So you…"

"Came back here, and dealt with it myself." Regina nodded.

Emma sat up and scooted back against the headboard of the bed, "So… was that the last like… major thing we had to deal with? No more surprises? No more evil moms or step-moms or anything? We can just hang back and live all royal and shit?"

Regina laughed and nodded, "Yes dear, as far as I know… everything is over…"

"Good. 'Cause I'd like my happily ever after…"


End file.
